This is the city: Los Angeles, California. I work here. I'm an ex-mayor. Los Angeles is a magnet for people from all over the world. Some of them run for public office. Inevitably some of them stray from the golden rule and rule for those that have the gold. That's when I go to work. My name is Yorty. I'm a dead pol.

Friday, January 25, 2008

Friday Hotsheet at 3 a.m.

Yesterday,Citybeat went strongly against Prop 13, after 30 years. The pub blamed most everything wrong with the State on Howard Jarvis's crowning moment. You may have noted how Citybeathas leaned moderately libertarian through its history; this was a departure. Prop 13 was a pure libertarian revolt, and Citybeat threw many scribes against it to villify it beyond redemption. The plight of County libraries is perhaps a yawner for the general public, and education is overdone, but the best piece, for my money, was Andy Klein's Prop 13 tie-in to the film Network.

"Just 27 women are actually fighting Los Angeles fires. The number is staggering in its shock value." We'll hopefully see how PR superstar Brian Humphries deals with the story first-hand.LACMA raided by G-Men! The Pacific Asia Museum too. You can bet most people in the trade are thinking, "It's too bad the Getty wasn't involved..."

Skid Row is so sufficiently gentrified that transients are no longer the main tenants of the transient hotels, which are themselves no longer transient, the Times says. You'll know it as Central City East yet. What happened to that conversion moratorium? My guess is that it was enforced highly selectively, even floor-by-floor, before it expired peacefully.

There was tough talk from the Daily News's editorial column on Wednesday: "City Hall's record is clear: Our officials are only interested in filling the city's treasury with more money so they can reward the unions, developers, contractors and other special interests that keep them in their privileged positions." The editorial was on the potential power of neighborhood councils.

By and large, NC's are just: NO more taxes, no more development, don't trust the Councilmember, gang up on him/ her whenever possible. The ONLY useful function they have is standing up to jerks like the writers at CityBeat, who'd love to drag more $ out of homeowners who are already a minority in this city (under 40%), mad and strapped that their taxes as is are going to educate, provide healthcare and transit and housing for the illegals and "ungrateful rabble."

Funny how from Zine in the Valley to Perry in South L A, they're seeing their NC's as oppositionists and naysayers on everything -- just like the westside NIMBYs have been for decades. Pretty soon they'll be just as rude, insular and nasty.

I'd like to see development and traffic controlled and reduced, but between nitwits like Woo on Planning and his sidekick Reyes, who want "affordable housing" with no parking to ruin homeowners' investments further, those like the Cheviott Hills and West L A NIMBYs who stalled mass transit for decades and demand instant traffic fixes but refuse to work with their CM or city and fools like CityBeat writers who think westside homeowners should be cash cows even more in a recession while getting even less back -- the forces are in motion for just more fireworks and battles. So far, while NC's have a valid point in halting developments that hurt them, they're not part of a constructive solution.

The LA Weekly's news editor Jill Stewart has trotted out her decades-old vendetta against Jackie Goldberg and Mailander appears willing to pile on. It was shopworn when she used to stretch reality beyond recognition to attack Goldberg as a reporter and now it's just old and tired.

Goldberg may have been the Councilmember who most vocally championed gender opportunity at the LA Fire Department, but she was far from the only person pushing for it. Anyone who thinks the goal was to completely equalize gender participation is missing the point big time. It was to pry open the door of bias and discrimination that had plagued LAFD since its inception. Anybody care to argue that LAFD has fixed that problem even now, or that it never had one?

To say that the effort wasn't worthwhile just because it hasn't yet succeeded is like saying - pick your metaphor - that there was no point in opposing slavery, the holocaust, racial discrimination, gender discrimination or what-have-you because we haven't wiped out all of the underlying causes and achieved a perfect solution.

Give it a rest Jill. Goldberg is retired. She isn't bothering anyone in public these days. Except, apparently, you.

Joseph you are so right and thanks to David Z coming out again and reporting the truth on Prop S. Can this piece of bullshit pass?

.....Phone tax gets heavy backing from unions...They have given nearly $1.9 million to the Proposition S campaign, which is seeking to preserve a tax on cellular and land line calls.By David Zahniser, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer January 25, 2008 The campaign for a $243-million telephone users tax on the Feb. 5 ballot has amassed nearly $2.6 million, almost three-fourths of it from labor unions, according to campaign contribution reports filed Thursday.

Unions provided nearly $1.9 million to the Proposition S campaign, which is seeking to preserve a tax on cellular and land line calls that has been challenged repeatedly in court.

The size of the donations appalled foes of the tax, who said that city employee unions were rewarding politicians for giving them raises -- and ensuring that more will be granted in the future.

"This is the economics of special interests," said Walter Moore, who has been battling the measure. "You have a special interest that can make hundreds of millions of dollars by putting in $1 million or $2 million at City Hall."

I think some of us give too much credit to the general public who doesn't read this blog or look into things regarding Prop S.

If someone walks into the voting booth, cold -- and sees "tax reduction" -- they are going to vote, "yes". They aren't going to think it's a new bond, tax or fee.

That's why it's "s" for "shady", but Villar is having the last laugh.

The only hope is that people who don't already know, will just skip all the propostion stuff -- and just vote for the president. But everyone who is against it, knows to look for it. That's the only hope.

I feel sorry for both the Fire Chief and Police Chief because they have no choice but do and be as political as the short gang banger mayor is telling them to promote Prop S. If they don't he's told them firefighters and police officers will be the first to get laid off. Not one "real man" in this city can stand up to that short little shit. What happened to the strong men in this city that weren't afraid to stand up and be leaders??:" All we have now are "ladies" dressed in suits that are the weakest men I've ever seen. Shameful Shameful Shameful.

Dear Neighborhood Council Leader and/or Community Leader: As always, your input on the City's Budget via the Mayors Budget Survey is critical.

This year the Mayor is asking for your feedback on the key issues and decisions that he and the City Council will have to make to balance a budget in times of great financial challenges. Decisions will have to be made about key City services that impact the communities we live in. Decisions will also need to be made on how to safeguard and/or attain new revenue for essential services.

NO WAY THE GANG BANGER MAYOR WANTS TO KNOW WHAT ANYONE BUT HIMSELF THINKS. THIS IS JUST A STUPID EXERCISE TO PRETEND HE CARES

Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen (looks up from desk where he is completing an order form):

So, the constabulary has caught up to several museums with respect to hot merchandise, and several well-to-do art procurers are waking up and wondering if someone is coming for them. (Smiles) Now here’s a thought to ponder. All of the items that were the subject of the raid came from ostensibly outside the boundaries of this particular nation. But what if there were some items in certain museums around town that were looted from within our own borders? (Whispers) Treasures that were obtained on what Zuma lad might call the “down low.” Treasures that perhaps a pirate would want to know about or wish to have knowledge of, savvy?

I wonder what you sots would say if it came to light that a certain ki-yi-yippie-yi-yay museum in a certain park also held items that might be of interest to the same constabulary that has been bothering someone whose shop is on La Brea. (Sighs) Probably a lot of hufflepuff and balderdash, that Captain Jack tilts at windmills, etcetera and what have you. (Winks) Perhaps. But wouldn’t it be interesting if these same persons who have the link with the looted also deposited a different kind of loot into someone’s campaign coffers. Or better yet, those certain electeds and friends of who have a rather nice art collection that was helped along by “someone in the business” actually have in their homes and offices the very same loot that the constabulary is, if you will, seeking, savvy?

(Completes Girl Scout cookie order form and hands it back to waiting Girl Scout and her troop leader) There you go, luv. Ninety boxes at $4 a box is a tidy little sum (Girl Scout smiles and thanks Captain Jack) Oh you’re quite welcome, luv. Anything to help the Girl Scouts. Say, I know some smart girls who are Aussie Girl Guides. Would you like to meet them? (Girl Scout nods in the affirmative) Right then, as soon as I’m done here, I’ll make the call. (Waves good-bye to Girl Scout and looks sharply at sots) Oh sod off. Ninety boxes lasts until this time next year. Besides, we’ve got to have something to munch on when we bring the Pearl back to her home port, savvy?

What Captain Jack is trying to say is that "hot merchandise" from museums outside this country is showing up at museum pawn shops -- and it has him worried that SW Museum artifacts may be jacked from within to be pawned off, as well; or handed out to shady politicians as campaign contributions instead of deflating dollars. (Or something like that.)

Sounds like another case of "paint for play". Tell Giselle to give it a shot.

If you're someone who opposes a particular project like a school, a condo complex or a waste dump in your neighborhood for specific, well reasoned causes, that's one thing.

If you don't want Home Depot in your community because the place they want to build is surrounded on three sides by homes, schools and has no easy access to roads and highways that's one thing.

If you don't want a 400 unit condo project built at the end of your road on a hilltop pass, that's one thing.

However if you want no condos, no Home Depots, no schools, etc. for no good reason in your neighborhood, then you're a NIMBY.

If you are against ALL Home Depots or all condos or all new schools in the entire city you're a BANANA.

And if you're opposed to all development, don't want any new stores or schools and think things should stay the way they are, you're a CAVE.

For example there are a lot of the anti-Home Depot people in Sunland-Tujunga that have no problem with Home Depot being somewhere else and actually do/would shop there. The problem with Sunland-Tujunga is that community physically not big enough nor does it have the proper layout for a Home Depot. It would be like trying to put DisneyWorld into the Vatican. However here in NoHo, there is plenty of place for a Home Depot and we actually have one. It has plenty of space, has access to roads, its not near any houses and its even has a railroad right behind it so it could get supplies.

Now there are people who don't want Home Depot or Wal-Mart or Sears or Costco or Lowe's, etc. built at all, they would fall into the CAVE mentality.

Ultimately government regulation has created a lot of these problems, primarily the corruption that surrounds a lot of development. If Clowncilmen didn't have to sign off on every minute detail of a development project, then the developers wouldn't have to buy them off and the market would correct any issues.

Mayor Sam,You have to include small business owners in the group that opposes Home Depot. You can't deny the revenue loss these developments represent to the small businesspersons, who can't keep up with the low prices. Other than that I agree with you.

So in Sunland-Tujunga they want to take out the Verdugo golf course and put in condos. Funny, several years ago they city council APPROVED the Angeles Golf course in the Tujunga Wash on the basis that "We did not have enough recreational Golf courses around. Now people are having to try and "save the golf course". Holy Cow, it makes no sense to me, is there not any consistancy here? The same folks who ultimately approve one golf course using the "need" argument are now saying the opposite on this new issue. What the heck is going on...

Captain Jack Sparrow rightly said... (Whispers) Treasures that were obtained on what Zuma lad might call the “down low.” Treasures that perhaps a pirate would want to know about or wish to have knowledge of, savvy?...

re prop 13There is the law of unintended consequence on both the pro and con prop 13 argument. I know my parents probably would not be able to pay the increased prop tax on the value of their house they've paid and lived in for 30 years for one. But the article misses the big picture in 2 big ways. One is that Prop 13 was the idea that citizens should have a greater say in what they get taxed on. The second is that with these new found restrictions, legislators would be forced to limit the size of govt, live within our means and spend on the most important things the state needs. So Prop 13 put the cookie jar of tax money on top of the refrigerator from it's former spot on the table. What do the politicos do - they run and grab chairs. When the chairs get taken away, they call their friends and borrow chairs from them. Say what you will, the politicos have been busy just trying to grab these chairs rather than to figure out where the money is best spent, or how to best share the cookies they've been given by the people.

Prop. 13 was created because people were being forced from their homes at unheard of rates due to the property taxes. Jarvis was something of a lunatic (what we like to call Libertarians) who believed in little-to-no funding for ANYTHING. This includes all of education as well.

The state is now in charge of distributing money, and there is no money to go around. We are in the bottom 5 of per pupil spending, yet we spend half of our budget on it (according to state law).

How are we supposed to fix the freeways and hire CHP and fix the prisons and do everything else with no new sources of revenue.

How many of the artifacts of the Southwest Musuem which were moved to the Autry Musuem are still there? Did Autry sell them to the other musuems? I still think a lot of the stuff went to the Indian Musuem in Washington.

"Prop. 13 was created because people were being forced from their homes at unheard of rates due to the property taxes."

I've lived in California my whole life. I remember pre-13 and post-13 and I don't recall that "people were forced from their homes..." at all. Are there some statistics you have that would help me refresh my memory?

Jack - I've lived in CA all my life as well. And I do recall quite vividly when I was in junior high school the day my father sat us all down and told us that if Prop 13 didn't pass, we were going to be moving from the house that I and my siblings were born and raised in to another house in another county where the dramatic rise in property tax increases wouldn't ultimately cause my parents to lose their house. There were lots of people (my parents among them) who really and truly were getting taxed out of their homes. Yes, the increases really were that bad, and the one income family was the norm and not the exception. My father had calculated it out and even with a two income family, my parents still couldn't keep up with rising taxes...and we lived frugally then. Prop 13 passed and my parents stayed put until the last one died last year.

There is the unforseen consequence that Prop 13 has created that actually is a boon to the younger generation that can only dream of home ownership - when you inherit the family home, the tax rate stays the same and is not re-assessed at market rate. This opens up homeownership to so many people that otherwise couldn't have afforded to purchase a house. Trust me, if I move into the family home and all I have to pay is the property taxes at the current rate, I'm sure as heck not going to stand still for a repeal of Prop 13. The other poster is right....foolish is the politician that tries to repeal Prop 13. The revolt will not be pretty.

Yeah, at that time we were three kids with a schoolteacher mom and a dad who had moved out of the state leaving no forwarding address.

Fun times for all of us, I guess...

Post Prop 13, aside from the loss/downsizing of police and fire departments in our town, the biggest thing I remember is that my sister's girl scout troop no longer visited the mental health homes and hospitals -- only because the state had to close them. I totally appreciate -- and get -- your story, but to this day, I still have to believe that Prop 13 went a bit too far. (Kind of like the poster at 3:50!)

Jim Bickhart's committment to Playa Vista was good till the day he turned around and told the local news in a letter that we were all lying. Right before he was asked "to leave" for forging Ruth Galanter's name.

So the Blogging Burger Flippers who don't like Playa Vista have a record of something like 2-19 in court and a one-case winning streak. Big deal. Losers are losers.

The developer will fix the EIR defects, the City will approve it again, they Flippers will go to court again and end up 2-20. In the meantime the project is still being built, which is what they were trying to avoid.

If that's winning, then I have some land at Las Lomas to sell you cheap!

Since the Burger Flipper who brought this up is yet another one of those who like to exploit Mayor Sam as a place to anonymously tell blatant lies about people - in this case to erroneously say that some chump committed forgery - perhaps their credibility isn't all they think it is.

According to two newspaper accounts we were able to find in the archives, that chump signed his own name on some memo. Is that Burger Flippers' idea of forgery these days.

And didn't that same chump go on to work for the one City Councilman who voted against Playa Vista 2 in 2004? That's a matter of public record too.

Selective memory is a sad thing. But all that grease they use in Fast Food Nation must do things to the brain cells.

Hell NO to dumping Prop 13, so we can pay for more single parent households with kids they can't afford. Especially the immigrants, the only part of the school population which is growing-- even legal Hispanics and blacks are fleeing to cheaper, safer areas where kids in school speakee EEngleesh. Some 1/4 LAUSD is illegals and we have to raise our prop taxes to pay for them?

Lots of people are needing to reduce their taxes with property values falling, dummies.

Jack Hoff, donchu worry none. Obama too, he Daddy done leave when he were but 2 year old, and he was raised by a single schoolteacher mama. A white mama so no wonder he don't know he black or white, and he trying to find his way as a black man. So he go to dad radical black power church dat give dad anti-semite Louis Farrakhan dey Person o da Year Award last year.

You and Obama got a sho lot in common, donchu you be frettin none. But dat boy too confuse to be da Prezident now, he gots ishoes!

In case you just joined us, we Playa Vista Burger Flippers just got dished a whoppin' helpin' of JB's greasy 'Chump' defense. Chump is treading water in a vast ocean of big guys.Save your flippin'lies' and rants. Use them on a man with power JB says. His second line of defense are letters to newspapers. Whos calling who a liar, Jack Hoff?You forged a memo and signed your own name.Forgery's forgery.

note the arrogance of the mayor's policy advisor jb the "chump" 12:49his assault on the playa vista detractors (like anyone else would make that angry post other than the subject himself) and how the voters to jb, in his usual charm, are "burger flippers" and "dumb shits". note small wonder that the mayor's policy advisor is shouting and hurling insults on a blog that "no one takes seriously".note the mayor's policy advisor needs an attitude adjustment and note that he has a whole blog where he fights with a... pirate?note m.c. at 5:29 solidly backing her boyfriend, the mayor's policy advisor, with m.c.'s standard-issue smoke and mirrors.it's business as usual for these two.

That's one winning combination for a liberal! Contempt for the masses and an extra blast of piss and vinegar reserved for the environment. Small wonder Antonio's proud that Jack Hoff's gone fishin' here.